Themed Warhammer Fantasy army? Heresy! *Blam* (2000 points)

A good read so far

Today, I want to talk about my Vampire Counts Fantasy army.  It is a themed army. Everything is grave based. It is based of the Idea of the army from the book Dead Winter. I haven't finished reading the book yet, but I know the general idea of what was in the army. Pretty much, the army is made up of zombiefied people who have died from the black plague, a skaven born disease that killed pretty much everybody it could in an attempt to weaken the empire for a rumble from down under. Everything in the army has been modeled to use some aspect of some other army zombified in order to go more with the theme. I can tell you about it all day long, which some people have been hearing about it for years with little to no work done on the army.  Here is the end result.

2000 points!

No black nights, but I need a second group of Crypt Horrors

Lord & Heros!

The Trio

These guys are the trio. Lord choice is the very priest of morrish, Henrich Kemmler. Fluff wise, he will play the role of Fredrick Van Hal. This man was such a potent caster that he has his own spell caster. He has to be the Level 4 caster with lore master. Usually, these guys die like no ones bushiness.  Kemmler helps here in the fact that he is actually ethereal. Anyone who can kill him will murder him, but anyone who could kill him will murder Master Necromancer I care to use as a general. Hero choices are a pretty standard. The fighty character that goes with Kemmler at 2000 points is a Wight king. His gear is simple. Enchanted shield, sword of striking. Hits on a 3+ which is nasty with killing blow, has a 3+ save, is really at T5 with 3 wounds all for 105 points. I don't have a picture of him, but my old school Krell Model will work nicely for him. Now, for my extra caster I decided to do something nifty. The guy in purple is a level 2 necromancer with a dispel scroll or Book of Akhan with death magic. I love death magic. It has all the serious punch the guy needs. Debuffs work wonders or the casting that dreaded Purple Sun and go for the irresistible force. He is only level 2 so blowing him up isn't to bad. I have blasted purple sun through my own zombies (mulching the unit) to net me tons of power dice. The choice between dispel scroll and book are simple. A magic heavy opponent can have a whole magic phase shut down if you dispel scroll at a good time. If the opponent isn't magic heavy, the book casts Fredrick Van Hals signature spell Vanhal's Danse Macrabe as a bound spell. Great Surprise from the death wizard. It moves anyone 8 inches and allows them to reroll to hit until their next phase. This makes even the skeletons nasty.

Core! (and the problem)

The three groups in front.

  Three groups of 30 skeletons with spears, shields, light armor, standard and champion. They don't look like it, but that is how I want to run them. Everyone hates playing against zombies because they don't do anything and just bog everything down. I hate them. Opponents hate them. Bad choice all around. It is bad enough that I don't want to run them. I could run crypt ghouls, but at 10 points a piece and no way to raise past starting value, they really degrade the horde feel of the army. I have goblins that are wysiwyg with spears and shields and light armor, but they just feel out of place as skeletons. I want to use these guys to represent core because they feel better for the role. The build allows for an avalanche feel. Tons of attacks from everyone. The armor adds to toughness of the core section.  Fluff wise, these guys are basic plague zombies. They are numerous, tough, and ferocious. Skeletons work better for that than the other 2 core choices. Zombies are stupid. They just derp across the battle field and bang their foreheads into people until they are dead. Ghouls are great, but they cost such an incredible amount that they can't really be horded. A good horde unit will take up your entire core section quickly. Also, on the subject of raising more, here is more.

Here is an extra 50 guys for summoning fun.

Special!

2x 6 Crypt Horrors

 These guys are nasty. 6 guys that all have toughness 5, 3 attacks with poison, 3 wounds, stomp, movement 6 and a 5+ regeneration. That is 18 attacks and a wall of flesh to stay in combat. They will put the hurt on people and all for the low cost of 200 something points. They are good, but with magical support, they are beasts. They will hurt anything with their poison and will survive most hits back. Also, they are fast enough to be important. I could run them as verghiest, but glass cannon<Hammerish anvil.


Rare!

Terrorgheist

The start of this section is the dreaded Terrogheist. This guy has the scream from hell. He hunts monsters and war machines. High toughness doesn't matter as it is wounds+2d6 against an opponents leadership with no armor save. Often , this will put things like war machines and monsters on their asses fast. A double 6 often sees any monster dead as 8 wounds minimum is tough to save though as often the only save will be regeneration. Kills heavy cavalry dead. He isn't a slouch in combat either. 4 attacks isn't all that good, but d6 thunder stomps and a flank charge with a few extra things can be good. He flies... Jumping spiders I guess....

Mortis Engine!

This is my favorite model I have ever owned. It is the original Black coach model. I love this chariot, but I really want something more fitting in theme. I am running it as a mortis engine with a black tome. This adds +2 to cast my spells, +1 to any regeneration save I have or gives a 6+ regeneration to anyone within 2d6+the number of turns if it is friendly and does d6 hits with strength equal to the number of turns and has a banshee's scream. What all does that mean? It means that my skeletons will have a 6+ regeneration save after a 5+ armor save, my crypt horrors will have a 4+ regeneration save and my general will actually have a save past being ethereal. This really helps with the army's lack of survivability. They are both chariots so it is ok.

Conclusion!

Hopefully, this list will be fun and fluffy.  The list is tough, but not double terrorghiest/graveguard spam tough. It is based almost entirely on the idea of fluff. I am actually quite proud of it. Magically, it is as caster as vampire count lists often get. +6 to cast and knowing every spell in the army is great for the feel of Fredrick Van Hal I will begin painting it soon. The scheme is black and brown for the common zombies while Fredrick will get painted like a Priest of Morr/Amethyst wizard.  Tell me what you guys think.

 

Here is one of my Bruiser Buses of crypt horrors and a monster I have been working on.

Here is what I have been working on as of late. Every model has a story

The Thumper

The Terroghiest.

I don't like the Terrorgheist model. I got this one to use as one instead. 

The Jowls

Mr. Fisty Cuffs

"Pillow" hands

 This guy is one of my favorites. He has live goblins for hands.

Here is the bus in all its glory. This is a single squad with the two additional guys from earlier in the blog. 

This is just a little bit. All I need is another box of ogres for my second squad and that should be all I need for my 2400 point Full Themed army that is pretty fluffy and decently good. Tons of tough units and even a few hammer units. I just really hope people want to start playing fantasy as it is a really great game. Imagine all the fun parts of warhammer 40k with less importants on shooting, more importants on combat, suitable psyker(magic) defense for everyone even without anything psyker, and almost no annoying And They Shall Know No Fear!.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEEEAAAH!!

The real reason the rapture didn't happen.

   I want to talk about an idea I had for a Duengons and Dragons character. I usually play a decently powerful cleric. This character is usually Lawful evil and a real bad ass. They often have the ability to break the game or turn deadly encounters into a cake walk. I often don't go all CoDZilla on people, but still stay powerful.  I will admit that at times, I have gone Over Powered when playing with a group I have never played with  before because I would rather be Tough and not need it than need to be tough and unable to be tough.  Today, I want to discuss a character that I want to play that is new, fluffy, and fun from what is considered one of the most useless classes in the handbook.

How do you make a grappler?
You need a character with a decent attack bonus for grapple and doesn't have alot of required stats. Size is needed so you don't get -4 on grapple. A spiked gauntlet is needed to do lethal damage. Eventually, you will want Enlarge person permanent spell cast on you.  Not alot is needed for a good grappler.

The useless bard

Start with a bard. Decent attack bonus, tons of skills (for fun moments with skills), good utility spells and ok feats. The perfect grappler. Anything the bard can't grapple down, he has the ability to spell out.  On top of this, he has use of the Perform (Oratory) skill. Means you don't need in instrument to use your skills which is great when both of your hands are wrestling someone to the ground.  Combine all of this together and what do we get?

The Macho Man Randy Savage!!!

     You have a grappler who has perform speech, doesn't wear lots of armor, doesn't need to be muscular, but is absolutely massive and is larger than life. He can grapple down people quite easily and keep them down.  This kind of character is really fun. Climb atop a tree and elbow drop on to someone. Use intimidate and perform oratory to explain to your enemies how you are go break every bone in their pathetic little bodies. Woop some ass.  Have fun. Enjoy.

Goblins everywhere!!!

Look what I got!

     So after a bit of a break from playing, I have decided to pull my fantasy set out again. Last time I started playing, I picked up the vampire counts. It was a fun army, but it is really static and hardly ever plays differently save when the winds of magic crap on you. So instead, I have decided to pull something out of the closet that I have had for a good while. A long time ago, I traded my Tau army for a much larger and more valuable  Orcs and Goblins army. It comes to about 2500 points of orcs for roughly 1750 points of tau.  I wrote a little something up and I think it will be fun to play with and against.

Chariots and artillery!

    Ok, so that is 1000 points worth of orcs and goblins (minus the orc chariot)

Lord

Night goblin warboss: Fencers blades, Glittering scales, potion of stength

This guy is a murderous hurricane. He hits on 3's at int 5 and can wound most things on a 2 for one round. To hit him back, he is WS 10 and has -1 to hit him. He is a dualist type lord. It will be hard for anyone to hit him back for the most part. I may try to switch him out for something else, but for 130 points, he is pretty kick ass.

Core

50 night goblins: Standard, Boss, Musician, 3 fantatics

This one unit is my core. Big block of guys is nice, but the real points in them is the 3 fanatics. Those 3 guys will do 3d6 s5 armor piercing hits to anyone who gets within 8 inches. Really, the core for an all goblin army isn't that good. Sure, I can drop some goblins and take spider riders instead, but they aren't gonna do much better. They won't stand with steadfast and really, they aren't meant to.

Special

6 spear chukka's

3 Wolf chariots

This section is a fun one. The six spear chukka will put a serious hurt on people. Sure, they won't hit alot needing 5's to hit past 24 inches, but with six of them, They should do some work. The wolf chariots are there to hit hard and run. Tons of impact hits and a decent attack, these guys can kill quite a few people. They also bait really well. The only thing I don't know about is do I run these guys. A single unit will see these guys hurt people. 3 separate units can see multiple targets engaged as well as more feints and run away from more fights and try and bait into the fanatics. The downside to fleeing is that with a ld 7 on the general, they might not rally.

Rare

2 Doom divers

2 snotling pump wagons

   These guys are some nasty customers. The pump wagons do 2d6 impact hits. They are really nice for 45 points. They move 3d6 random distance. This means they charge 5d6 inches (I believe). Cheap, effective, fast. The doom divers are only 80 points and they are nasty. They fire as a stone thrower so scatter 2-10 inches unless they roll a hit. The doom divers can than correct their shot d6 inches. They than do d6 hits at S6 with no armor saves allowed. Drop Knights like a champ. Anyone that needs an armor save will fear these guys, but because of the massive reach of the divers, you really can't avoid them.


Theme!

   Ok, so by now, you might understand the theme of the army. Quick and Hits like a sledge hammer. Even the immobile targets have a range of 48 inches+.  the list comes to 8 war machines and 5 chariots. I may try to fit in more speed and guns instead of that horde night goblins. I do have 30 spider riders that will make for a fun little core. What do you guys think?

Sisters of battle:Paper Tigers of a Thousand Paper Cuts

Watch for those paper cuts

     So after my first five games with my sisters of battle I have decided that I am going to go off to a tournament. I have had great success with them. The results for the army have been rather surprising. I have dominated the relic in the one game where I chose to go for objective and the other four games I have come really close to tabling my opponent or the game ended really early. The most notable of these was when I played a test draigo wing on turn four. I noticed a few things that seemed strange. When I first looked at these girls on paper, they looked good, but there were several things I noticed that really set the sisters apart from everyone else.  I want to talk about a few of these advantages that I have found.

Good luck with Target Saturation

      Sisters of battle have one of the strangest and most difficult choices for target saturation. The tournament army I am running at 1850 has all but 2 units  of 10 units costing 175 points. Each and every unit is a particularly nasty threat to everything. The game usually opens with 2 squads of 2 melta, a combi melta, and a twin linked multimelta scouting forward. You can kill them, but than the rending heavy bolters are gonna go to town on you from behind an aegis line. Kill the rending sisters and you have to worry about celestine and her friends running up and hit and run jumping from combat to combat surgically gutting your army. Celestine is immortal, so good luck keeping her down. While you are trying to kill all of this, the forty power armor sisters in rhinos are running around the field clogging the place up and scoring.  Often the only clear target is the Excorcist battle tank. I only run one, so shooting it often hurts you more than helps. AV 13 is hard to kill behind an aegis defense line.  This presents the problem of what to actually kill first.  To make this problem ever harder, a lot of people have rarely seen Sisters of Battle. I have seen two other people play them in five years. The only way to solve this problem is to play against Sisters and most people can't.

It's power armor but better!

    Sisters of battle are power armor soldiers, but better in an odd way. They are reduced in cost and things like toughness, initiative, and strength to show they are regular humans. They are better because they have something called the Shield of Faith.  It is a six plus inv save. Doesn't sound like much, but it really helps. Most weapons that kill marines in bulk are ap3-1. At the same time, most of these weapons are str 6 or higher. This means that such weapons like plasma guns and battle cannons kill less sisters than they do regular marines. Also, Sisters of Battle vehicles die less often then their Marine counterparts. I have had plenty of vehicles actually survive an extra round because they saved a lucky pen or glance that would have killed them. It is random enough that you can't rely on it. Strangely, it is quite encouraging to make a save like this every once in a while. This also means that Sisters are better apt at handling things like Monsterous Creatures and anything with a power fist. Also, things like Mawlocs and Doom of Malantie are not as effective.

Killing them all with fire

     Sisters of Battle are incredible at overwatch. These girls have killed a lot of people with overwatch. Logan Grimnar has fallen to the flamers of Sisters of Battle. They are a medium to short range army. I run my units to fight specific unit types. The basic Battle Sister squads have two flamers for their heavy weapons because they have so many bolters that go for infantry, so add in more anti infantry to those squads. This also means that while 16 bolter shots go at the enemy for overwatch, 2d3 flamer Hits go to the enemy jsut for declaring a charge. This gets even worse when you add in vehicles as they usally end up charging the rhino (2d3 overwatch hits), destroy it, see the whole squad get out, get rapid fired by bolters and than templated by two flamers. This wouldn't be so bad if you could consolidate against vehicles, but because you can't you are left bunched up in a great formation for max template hits. Than, they get to attempt to finish off the squad charging again.That is just the basic sister squads. Seraphim that I  run get 2 hand flamer per models. I run two, so that is 4d3 flamers per charge against them. Add in celestines d3 heavy flamer hits, and you have a ton of hits before a charge. The Wall of Death special rule has made Sisters very tough.

Conclusions?

     So, to conclude this article, I want to talk of the future. Five games isn't enough to really talk about definites, but this army is by far the my favorite army to play. I am attending the Brawler Bash in april with my Sisters. The tournament has forge world, so I expect flyers to be kept at a minimum because there will be so much Anti Air units. Rending quad gun is all my AA for this event. I will be running 70 armored battle sisters in vehicles. It is a tough list. It is a beautiful army too. I have a good chance to win any of the accolades the event offers. Everything is painted well, so best painted is good, I have never had a problem with sportsmanship (won sportsmen from my first tourney) , I have never done worse than 2-1 at a 3 game tournament and that was with a list that was both weaker and less diverse than this army. I think I can do this.

The sisters first outting...

Sisters of Battle in all their glory

Howdy everyone. It has been a while. Since I last wrote, I got engaged. It has been a great month. In that month, I acquired an entire Sisters of Battle army. When I say an entire army, I mean it. I got roughly 1200$ worth of them at one time. The list totals something along the lines of this

• 40 bolter sisters
• 4 meltagun sisters
• 6 flamers sisters
• 4 heavy flamer sisters
• 2 heavy bolter sisters
• 2 multimelta sisters
• 10 seraphim, 2 with hand flamers
• 5 rhinos
• 3 immolaters
• an excorcist
• 10 repentia
• inquistor and friends
• 5 power sword superiors 
• 4 power maul superiors
• 3 flag sisters
• various odds and ends

This is just a list off the top of my head.  It an amazing deal that I was happy to make. I have been writing something to play with this for a while and I finally just said screw it and decided to run what I wanted to try. There was a little bit of everything. I ended up with this

HQ
Celestine
Troops
10 sisters 2xflamers rhino with dozer blade
10 sisters 2xflamers rhino with dozer blade
10 sisters 2xflamers rhino with dozer blade
Fast attack
5 dominion sisters 2xmeltaguns combi melta immolater with twin linked Multimelta
5 dominion sisters 2xmeltaguns combi melta immolater with twin linked Multimelta
9 seraphim with 2 hand flamers
 Heavy support
Excorcist
Excorcist (proxy)
5 retributor  4 heavy bolters (2 proxy)

1500 points. This list was surprisingly good. I played two games. They went something like this.

                                                                 GAME 1

Chaos demons!

 My friend rob got the new Demons of Chaos codex and we decided there was no better way to test a codex that we had no idea about like an army that none of us had any real idea about. I have only seen one sisters of battle army played in five years of play.  It was gonna be a wierd game. Here was his list at 1500 points

HQ
Blood thirster-2 greater gifts, lesser gifts
2 heralds of nurgle-2 greater gifts, 2 psyker powers
Troops
18 blood letters
15 blood letters
10 plague bearers
10 plague bearers
5 nuglings
Heavy
Demon prince of khorne with wings

Or something close to that. The game was a long but interesting set up. Hammer and Anvil+Big guns never tire saw me with six scoring units. Tons of viable upgrading with the rewards. The demon prince got It will not die, reroll inv save, 4+ feel no pain, and +1 Wound. This guy was a nightmare as an entire round of shooting saw no damage sticking. The blood thirster was almost as tough , but with 1000 points of sisters dumping fire into him, he only died by an extra wound. Celestine and the seraphim squad Hit and Run with 3 inches of the big blood letter squad and they caused 28 wounds in a round of shooting. It was pretty incredible. This game also saw my only shield of faith save as a random Warp storm saw a pen on an excorcist. Saved on a six. We called the game on turn 2 as demons are gonna be a complicated game and by turn 2 I had killed almost all the blood letters easily and had only lost an immolater and 2 dominion sisters. Gotta get a rematch on the books for this one.

Game 2

Tau!

Game 2 was against a friend from work named Micah. He is a friend from work. He was kind of new and he wanted a game and I was the only person available to play. His list was kinda suit heavy. Here it is

HQ
Shasel with twin linked plasma gun missile pod and toys
elite
2 crisis suits with plasma gun, mutlitracker, and missile pods
2 crisis suits with plasma gun, mutlitracker, and missile pods
2 crisis suits with plasma gun, mutlitracker, and missile pods
troops
6 fire warriors
6 fire warriors
6 fire warriors
6  warriors
fast attack
2 terta
2 terta
heavy
2 broadside with 2 shield drones
hammer head with toys
hammer head with toys

This game was alot closer.  Relic with dawn of war deployment. The suits all died to dominion sisters meltagunning them to death when he moved them forward. This is where the sisters were awesome. It was relic and I ended up clogging up the objective the entire time with all my marines with a 6+ inv save and vehicles. Dominions scouted up onto the relic and waited for back up. 50 Power armored sisters decided the relic was the place to be.  After killing all his suits, he didn't have enough to really kill my guys with the objective after I had LoS blocked with every rhino and wreck I could manage. Celestine died a few times, but kept getting back up. The tertas ended up lighting up anything they shot at, but since it was mostly vehicles, I wasn't to hurt by it. The vehicles showed their worth by being boxes against fire.  I feel it I had gotten first turn, this game would have gone a lot different, but I didn't get it.  It was a fun game.


Overall, this army has recaptured my love of the game. Beautiful models combined with fun rules. I really gotta get more organized in this. I want to pursue an idea with this army. I want to look at the idea of units being good without having to make their points back. For instance, where the dominion sisters melta'd the suits. Not nearly enough of a trade to make back points, but it really defanged the opposing army.  I am still ecstatic about the army and I will have more for everyone the more I play. Lets share in this adventure together!

Turning 23

So, I am 23. Meh. Gonna have some fun and be back with a great article. Later yall!